Metal Detecting Forum

Today I had my first opportunity to detect a site with the Equinox 600. It is a town green and has a section where and old house may have burned down or fill was dumped so one section has lots of steel and iron nails and other debris. I live in Upstate NY near Albany and places in the area have been pounded by very capable detectorists. I used Park one and began detecting. Even at a sensitivity setting of 23 it was really stable and I started off impressed. Unfortunately after several really nice tones that read 24-36 and turned out to be steel or cut Iron nails I was pretty disappointed. I had heard the nox was really good in iron but it wasn't proving to be. I turned up and down the iron bias and tried hunting in Park 2 but same results. I have never used Minelab detectors before but I have used several other detectors in the past, including Whites Classics and DFX, Shadow X5, Fisher F22, most recently an A T Pro for the first time and I didn't receive this level of falsing on nail with a higher disc that I did with the equinox. I am normally pretty optimistic and can figure settings on other detectors out pretty quick (I know I am new at using it )but I just wasn't clicking with this detector. Also even when I swung the coil at a 90 degree angle several good signals with vdi #'s 24-36, still sounded good. (Are there other setting to help with this than iron bias?) I like to give things a chance and try to learn them but the thought crossed my mind that I could sell this thing before I scratched it and I could just use the AT Pro that a buddy recently gave me :-) Also the ergonomics seemed awkwards, it was rubbing on my forearm and seemed front-heavy. I detected my way over to the main green where there have been recent flea markets and where I have unfortunately found newer targets down pretty deep due to the soil but I figured, "let's see how this does on some deeper coins in an area with less old iron." I didn't expect to find anything old. I found a dime down 6 in, a bottle cap down 7 in, another bottle cap down 7". The depth was decent but not overly impressive. I detected the area in the past with my DFX and never found any silver there and had to work hard gor only a couple wheaties at about 6-7". I figured I would detect my way back to the car quick and I got a really nice signal that read 24 to 26 but it had a really full tone to it that sounded different. It sounded really sweet, unlike any other detector that I have used. I just knew it was a coin. I dug down about 6 to 7 in and at the bottom of the plug I noticed another dime. I thought, "Cool another dime but this thing isn't impressing me as much as all the hype ;-). I then looked at it again and it looked a little different. The pattern was odd, it had been discolored from the soil and it turned out to be a 44 Mercury. That made me smile really wide since I never found silver there in the half a dozen times that I detected there with 2 other detectors. I found silver on the first hunt and have decided that perhaps my initial reactions were premature and I need to keep this thing LOL ANY SUGGESTIONS ON IRON FALSING ARE MUCH APPRECIATED AS WELL.

You said it very well...the good non ferrous targets "sound really good". After a hundred hours or so you can tell the falses from the good by tone alone. ML machines are excellent tone machines. You will begin to trust that what the machine is telling you via the tone is accurate. Use the numbers as a rough guide. Clive (cjc), writes about this in his book about the 800 and has posted excerpts about the tones on the various forums ( here too) and he describes it very well. I think that once you spend more time with it and learn it's language you will be able to pick those falses out. Odd shaped targets even sound different. The machine is very accurate telling you what's there you just have to learn what it's saying.

It always makes you wonder on finds like those. It's possible a week ago that someone detected out a pulltab 4" above that dime which has been masking it for 50 years and never rechecked the hole and then you were the lucky one to swing in the right place at the right time. I have found more than one silver quarter lying 3" deep in heavily hunted public parks and wondered how they were never plucked before I came along.There is a definite advantage to the detector that has that "round sound" capability like the Minelabs and the Deus but I have found that tone to often be as deceiving as a numeric VDI.

One thing to try: besides scanning side to side, also push forward and pull back over the target--see if iron identifies the same as side to side---or do you get extra changes in numbers?
Does it have a stat mode with i.d.?

Just it give it a little time and remain teachable , you will get the hang of it, all part of the learning curve i guess... i had to laugh when i expanded the picture as she looks like her false teeth are out..lol..

Been using a detector since '71 when Army had us checking roads. (must not have worked right........never found a mine.......found other things though)
Started dealing them in '76, through '93. What is fair is talking about empirical results from actual experience--that is not opinion. Different units may have
similar design format, and features--but operate very differently.
Paradoxically, bottlecaps//nails can be universally the biggest problem across motion units, with a DD design loop.